Aggrieved by UK government insistence it launch a national popular music radio station, the BBC unilaterally created a high culture network : 1945 : BBC Radio 3

 In terms of delivering value for money for the Licence Fee payer, ‘Radio 3’ is easily the most expensive of the BBC's five analogue radio networks. My calculations for 2009/10 show it had cost 8.5p per listener hour, compared to 1.7p for ‘Radio 4’, 2.5p for ‘Five Live’, 0.9p for ‘Radio 1’ and 0.6p for ‘Radio 2’.

There may be arguments about the artistic merit of Radio 3 (though I would argue exactly the same for Radios 1 and 2), but there is no denying that, in value for money terms, it is up there with the ‘BBC Asian Network’ [9.0p per listener hour] and ‘Radio Cymru’ [14.6p] on the expensive-ometer.

Remember the network's history. After World War Two, the BBC was 'persuaded' to continue the popular wartime ‘General Forces Programme’ as a new domestic network - the ‘Light Programme’. Until then, the BBC had resisted the notion of a full-time comedy and popular music network as horribly downmarket. At the same time, as a cultural response, the BBC made its own decision to launch the ‘Third Programme’ (renamed ‘Radio 3’ from 1967) on which then Director General WJ Haley promised "operas, plays, discussions, features will be given the fullest time their content needs."

As Sean Street wrote in his excellent account of UK radio from 1922 to 1945, 'Crossing The Ether': "The message for the old guard was clear: taste would not be undermined by change, culture would not be sacrificed for populism."

Radio 3 exists because the section of the BBC that would not be seen dead listening to Radio 2 (as the Light Programme was renamed from 1967) wanted their own high-brow radio station. The question is - should the rest of us still have to pay so highly for them to enjoy that privilege?

There is no doubt that Radio 3 produces some excellent unique programmes. The problem is that too few people ever get to hear them. And, if BBC Asian Network is still on the chopping board for these very reasons, how is it that Radio 3 has always managed to justify its continuing existence as a network that is virtually 'untouchable' when axes fall?

[Published reader comment to 'Radio 3 Is Letting Its Listeners Down', Sarah Spilsbury, The Guardian, 5 Oct 2011]